TV Commercials
Category: Kitchen Sink...
Posted Thursday, July 31, 2003 at 12:31 PM [GMT-6]

I have to get this out of my system, so I can stop thinking about it every time these commercials appear on TV...which is frequently.

Worst Commercials - Hotwire.com. There are two that come to mind. The first is where the dad pushes his young and timid son off the diving board in a frantic attempt to retrieve a quarter from the bottom of the pool. The second is the airline passenger who lifts a pack of peanuts from his sleeping neighbor.

Both ads end with the tagline, "Hotwire.com's kind of customer." Hmmm... child abusers and thieves... sort of a "niche market," wouldn't you say?

Best Commercial - The Discovery Channel's ad for Shark Week. This is a sequence of scenes where various folks in swimming and diving attire stare dubiously... anxiously... fearfully... at their pools, hot tubs and other small landlocked containers of water. The melancholy musical soundtrack adds to the drama and humor, and the commercial assumes a level of intelligence on the part of the viewer that probably isn't warranted, but is certainly appreciated.

Whew. I feel better!